Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 7.--That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will.

Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil will; for it is not efficient, but deficient, as the will itself is not an effecting of something, but a defect. For defection from that which supremely is, to that which has less of being,--this is to begin to have an evil will. Now, to seek to discover the causes of these defections,--causes, as I have said, not efficient, but deficient,--is as if some one sought to see darkness, or hear silence. Yet both of these are known by us, and the former by means only of the eye, the latter only by the ear; but not by their positive actuality, ¹ but by their want of it. Let no one, then seek to know from me what I know that I do not know; unless he perhaps wishes to learn to be ignorant of that of which all we know is, that it cannot be known. For those things which are known not by their actuality, but by their want of it, are known, if our expression may be allowed and understood, by not knowing them, that by knowing them they may be not known. For when the eyesight surveys objects that strike the sense, it nowhere sees darkness but where it begins not to see. And so no other sense but the ear can perceive silence, and yet it is only perceived by not hearing. Thus, too, our mind perceives intelligible forms by understanding them; but when they are deficient, it knows them by not knowing them; for "who can understand defects?" ²

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput VII: Causam efficientem malae uoluntatis non esse quaerendam.

Nemo igitur quaerat efficientem causam malae uoluntatis; non enim est efficiens sed deficiens, quia nec illa effectio sed defectio. deficere namque ab eo, quod summe est, ad id, quod minus est, hoc est incipere habere uoluntatem malam. causas porro defectionum istarum, cum efficientes non sint, ut dixi, sed deficientes, uelle inuenire tale est, ac si quisquam uelit uidere tenebras uel audire silentium, quod tamen utrumque nobis notum est, neque illud nisi per oculos, neque hoc nisi per aures, non sane in specie, sed in speciei priuatione. nemo ergo ex me scire quaerat, quod me nescire scio, nisi forte ut nescire discat, quod sciri non posse sciendum est. ea quippe quae non in specie, sed in eius priuatione sciuntur, si dici aut intellegi potest, quodammodo nesciendo sciuntur, ut sciendo nesciantur. cum enim acies etiam oculi corporalis currit per species corporales, nusquam tenebras uidet, nisi ubi coeperit non uidere. ita etiam non ad aliquem alium sensum, sed ad solas aures pertinet sentire silentium, quod tamen nullo modo nisi non audiendo sentitur. sic species intellegibiles mens quidem nostra intellegendo conspicit; sed ubi deficiunt, nesciendo condiscit. delicta enim quis intellegit?